Courier Six had seen many things in his years of being alive, from the horrors of the Sierra Madre to the crumbling, desolate wasteland that was the Divide. But nothing, nothing came close to becoming as strange as this. Multi-colored, sentient ponies. He did a quick check to make sure he wasn’t dreaming, by way of stabbing himself with an empty needle. It wasn’t sanitary, but what really was sanitary in this day and age?

Letting out a small hiss of pain as the needle entered his arm, he quickly pulled it out and tossed it. Yup, definitely not dreaming. Peeking down the scope of his Anti-Material rifle, he brought the bright-red reticle to the village of multi-colored equines.

“This is crazy.” Six muttered to himself, sliding his finger off of the trigger, and pressing it into the heavy-metal frame of the rifle. He then observed as one of the equines, a velvet colored coat, with streaks of purple in its hair, stepped out of a treehouse. Literally. As he watched, he noticed that the purple one, (which he dubbed ‘purple’) met up with an orange one, which was oddly enough, wearing one of those cowboy hats. He never really got the appeal of wearing one, you either protect your noggin, or you don’t.

They traveled down a pathway, leading into a market of sorts. It looked like a market to him, so that’s what he was calling it. There was nothing interesting about these ponies, it just looked like they were going to get supplies from the market, and so, he lowered his Anti-Material rifle, and slung it over his back, before bringing his .44 Magnum from the holster on his hip, and looking around his surroundings.

Surrounding the Courier was a lush green part of the forest, atop a large hill, which was an extreme advantage to a sniper, easy pickings for anyone below, if they had the appropriate camouflage, which he did not. His grey Riot Armor stuck out like Caesar in the middle of Camp Mccarran, his helmet’s crimson eye-holes giving the world around him a blood-red tint to it, which he didn’t mind. He loved the helmet, it gave him an intimidating edge in a fight, and let’s be honest, everyone thought he was a ranger, so nobody really fucked with him. Unless they were Legion.

Doing a quick cylinder check on his magnum, all six rounds were loaded into it, and so he stuck it in its holster again, keeping his right hand lingering close to it incase he needed to draw quickly. He stood up from his crouching position and made his way down the hill. Once he was at the base, he did a quick scan of his surroundings, and finding nothing out of the ordinary, stepped on down the premade path, which he presumed was made by the equines, and snaking its way out of the forest. He’s never seen so much shrubbery and green in his life, he tried to take in the beauty of the forest he’s found himself in. Reflecting back on how he found himself in this place, the memory was a little hazy, as if something was blocking him from accessing it, but he did make out bits and pieces, like gunfire, but that was pretty much it. The rest had eluded him.

Quickly finding himself out of the dark embraces of the dark forest, he switched off his low-light vision on his helmet before he burned out his retinas, and slid his hands inside of his duster’s pockets. He wasn’t strictly heading to the town, he didn’t have a reason to, and it’s better to not cause chaos from his presence alone. He was just going to let them do their daily business, his real destination was that big, fuck-all castle sitting on top of that mountain to his east. He was no architect, but he was pretty sure that nothing of that size would be able to withstand its weight, especially since the mountain isn’t holding up the weight of the castle, no, that job was held to its supports, which from this distance looked pretty measly. Well, there was a train station in the town he was observing not 10 minutes ago, so that was a bonus.

If the locals decided to attack him, he had the means to defend himself. After all, he did have his All-American strapped to his back, which was a beast on semi-auto, but on full-auto, it tore through enemies like a bullet through one of those old burned out books.

Quickly stopping himself, he zoned back into his surroundings and found that he had almost walked into the town. That would be bad. Turning to the west, he stepped off of the path and got into a crouch, slinking himself behind a building, and into a dark alleyway.

“What was that one pre-war song..?” Six spoke to himself, “Crazy he calls me? Yeah. This is entirely insane.” He observed quite obviously, before shaking his head, “Get yourself together, dude. You’ve faced worst things such as this. Reaching a hand up, he gripped the pistol-grip of his All-American, and brought it from his back, and into his palms. He let the gun’s weight dig itself into his palms, before he gripped it firmly, and gently pushed the collapsible stock into his shoulder. He then moved from building to building, stopping momentarily whenever he heard the ‘clip-clop’ of hooves against cobblestones.

“God, I could really go for some Moonshine right now.” The human sighed, “Cass always did make good stuff.” He let a small smile grace his lips at reminiscing old memories before he wiped it off as fast as it came.

“No use in dwelling in the past, let’s get to that train station.” He scolded himself, pushing himself through another alley. Once he knew the coast was clear. He made a dash across the street and quickly stopped himself in an alley, peeking left and right to see if anyone saw him. Letting out a breath that he didn’t know he was holding, he slipped back into the cover of the alley. He heard a whistle, and the sound of a steam engine, and scraping metal sound off somewhere in the corner of the city. He knew that was the train station, and that was destination.

Bringing his Pip-Boy 3000 to his face, he switched to the map, before blinking in surprise.

On the interface, was giant, bold, blue words, reading ‘NO SATELLITE CONNECTION.’

Six sighed, and shook his head, switching back to the weapon interface, before switching the display off, and bringing it down from his face, “There goes that.” He spoke, before hearing the sound of groundbreaking, and something bursting through it.

Almost instantly, his mind flicked to Tunnelers as the most possible cause for this. “Fuck.” He hissed, rolling his body to the left, and out of the alley. He pressed the stock of All-American into his shoulder, searching for the cause. Screaming sounded off into the air, he could make out some words like ‘Diamond Dogs!’ or ‘Run for your lives!’ But that was all.

“Diamond Dogs..? Fuck’re those?” He took in a deep breath and quickly made his way to the screaming. Stealth was completely out of the window, now. He had to save these people, or risk having the death of another town on his conscious. Not like he didn’t already have some, the Divide was proof of that. Nothing he did would ever make up for the things he did to those people.

Six sped around the corner of a house, All-American snapped to his shoulder and already having a shot lined up on whatever was around it. One of the equines was being cornered by a bipedal..dog? Fuck it, whatever. Shoot first and ask questions later. He twitched his finger, feeling the carbine slam against his shoulder, accompanying it was a loud shot ringing around the town. He sent off a few more rounds into the dog, watching it’s makeshift armor fail to hold up the sheer force and ballistic trauma, not to mention the round making its way through it. The dog dropped like a sack of bricks, and Six stepped over to the equine, which he could make out that it’s female, by its feminine-like crying and it’s tone of voice, before crouching down, faintly being aware of his helmet’s very imposing appearance.

The mare herself had a beige coat, with a red mane. The tattoo on her ass, which was a rose, let Six know that she was a gardener of sorts.

“You alright ma’am?” He asked, his helmet amplifying his voice, and giving it a robotic-like tint to it.

“Y-Yes, I think so..” The female acknowledged with a nod, before staring up into his visors, and her eyes almost instantly widening. She backed up against the wall of the house, rambling and babbling something about not hurting her.

“Relax.” He spoke simply, “I am not here to hurt you.” He assured, standing up, and looking behind him.

“W-w-who’re y-y-you?” She stuttered, and his vision quickly settled upon her once more. She shrank back in fear, as was to be expected.

“That is not important. Now get inside, it’s about to get messy.” He commanded, and the mare nodded and scrambled into the inside of the building. Six turned around, adjusting his grip on All-American as more of those dog-like bipeds ascended onto him.

“Looks like I'm late to the party." He quipped, raising All-American up. This wasn't going to be much of a fight, anyhow.

He quickly dropped all of them and did a mag check. He pressed in the magazine release and slid the steel magazine out of its cage. He raised it an angle that he could easily see inside of it. Letting out a slight sigh, which sounded a bit more like a groan, he shook his head, "Five." He muttered to himself, slipping the magazine into a pouch under his duster. He brought another, full magazine out into the open air, and clicked it into the carbine. He slammed his palm into the bolt release and felt the bolt slam forward, bringing a new round into the chamber.

"It's safe! You can come out!" He yelled out to the mare, seeing a beige head pop out of the building, followed by the body. She took one glance at the bodies strewn about and froze.

"Y-You ki-killed them!" She stuttered out once more, her gaze flicking to the bodies, then to Six.

"It was necessary." He simply said, looking down at the bodies, "Better them than me. Not like they had much of a choice, anyway." He shrugged, looking back over to the mare.

"Bu-but they were living, breathing beings! You can't just-just kill them!" She yelled, anger taking over her fears.

Courier Six took in a small breath, and turned completely to the mare, "What would have you done in this situation?" He queried, tilting his head to the side.

She instantly shut up, turning into a stuttering mess.

"Exactly my thoughts." He nodded, feeling a small sense of satisfaction, before looking around.

"Stay inside. I'll come to get you when I'm through with these." He ordered, and the mare complied, heading back inside, not wanting to drag this on further.

He became increasingly aware of a noise nagging at the back of his head. It sounded like wings, the pushing of air as they flapped. He looked up into the sky, seeing a shimmer of gold streak overhead. The human let out a grunt, before hearing the distance clashing of steel on steel. A fight was going down, and it wasn't his business to get involved. He was going to kill to save his life, and maybe a few others, but if someone was armed, they could hold their own. Or so he hoped.

Slinking himself into another alleyway, he made his way over to the noise of a fight and witnessed more of those equines, this time dressed in gold armor holding off against those dogs. He figured they must've been this place's military, if not, militia.

The Courier switched out his All-American for something a little more practical for this situation, his AER-9 Laser Rifle. He looked to his left and found he was right next to the window of a house. Convenient, but if anyone was home, they'd surely see him.

Smashing the window open via his AER-9's stock, he climbed inside and scanned the area for stairs, which he found, and ascended. He turned the knob of a door, and stepped inside, shutting it behind him. He moved over to the window of the bedroom and looked outside of it. The battle was in perfect view, and he smiled. A perfect vantage point. He unlocked it and lifted it up, to which he slid the barrel of his Laser Rifle out of it. He got into a stabilizing position, and brought the stock to his shoulder, and simply observed.

The militia looked like they were holding their own against the dogs, but had taken some casualties. These guys didn't even look properly trained. He watched as one of the dogs had it's arm unfortunately caught in the middle of a blade's swing, and subsequently lopped off. He let out a slight grimace at the howl of pain.

Still, he continued to sit there, watching. He was going to step in if needed, there was no point in letting these equines fall prey to their invaders. He still had many questions, but those were pushed to the back of his mind. Survival first, questions later. Hell, maybe after this was over he could get a stiff drink, but that was a very big if. Six let out a long sigh, this battle was going nowhere, and it looks like the militia was losing ground. He picked up his AER-9, and placed his hand on the handguard, before sighting down it. He always loved how futuristic the sights looked. It was an optic, with the reticle forming a cross that pulsated, every now and then.

Six lined up a shot on one of the dogs, and pulled the trigger back, hearing that familiar cartoony 'pew!' that accompanied it. He watched as the red laser streaked through the air, and struck the dog in the side of the head, burning through its helmet, and through his head with minimal effort. He was dropped instantly, due to his gray matter being fried instantly upon contact with the brain.

The battle stopped upon both sides witnessing the death of their comrade. The dogs and equines looked up to the window he was in, and he gave a small nod and lined up the reticle with another dog. It took very few shots to drop them all. One was struck in the chest, one the head, and one the gut, followed up by another shot to the head.

Six let out a small curse, they knew he was here. That's a stick in his plan. Removing the AER-9 from the windowsill, he quickly turned, and booked it down the stairs, before hearing the door being kicked in.

"Halt!" A voice bellowed out. Six turned his head, watching as a guard was standing in the doorway.

"Well, fuck."

Author's Note

Hoo boy, here we go.